


news from nowhere

by chickenfree



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: M/M, PWP, Smut, horny for route 395, one night stand but not at night
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-03
Updated: 2020-07-03
Packaged: 2021-03-05 04:35:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,658
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25058569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chickenfree/pseuds/chickenfree
Summary: Phil doesn’t know why exactly he’s in his room, other than that – well. He’s giggly, and gregarious, and Martyn had pointedly flicked his eyes back and forth between them. The guy had moaned comically loudly into his french toast, and Phil had perked up for the first time in days, and that was the end of that.
Relationships: Dan Howell/Phil Lester
Comments: 41
Kudos: 101





	news from nowhere

**Author's Note:**

  * For [midnight_radio](https://archiveofourown.org/users/midnight_radio/gifts).



He’s gregarious.

Phil doesn’t know why exactly he’s in his room, other than that – well. He’s giggly, and gregarious, and Martyn had pointedly flicked his eyes back and forth between them. The guy had moaned comically loudly into his french toast, and Phil had perked up for the first time in days, and that was the end of that.

“– so I’m out there, running like – like I’m pacman and this deer is a ghost, right? With my whole pack, which is nine thousand kilos, and my boot sole is literally flapping in the breeze, and –”

“You like pacman?” Phil blurts.

The guy stutters to a stop, smiling slow and uncertain. He looks a bit – caught out, or something. Like a deer in the headlights, only Phil isn’t sure if he would remember what headlights are, what with being outside civilization for a million years, so maybe that isn’t a fair comparison. 

“Sorry,” he says, quieter and maybe sheepish, if Phil’s understanding right. “It’s been a while since I’ve talked to anyone.”

“Oh. Yeah, that’s alright. I guess there’s – not a lot of talking in the woods?”

He shrugs. “I talk to the squirrels a bit.”

“Really?”

“Yeah,” he says. His foot taps on the weird stagnant old carpet, idle. “I thought I didn’t like talking, much? But then I got out there and it’s so fucking weird not to talk to anyone. There’s people along the trail, but it’s – mostly you’re just out there with the squirrels and a bear and the trees, basically. It’s nice. It’s really nice? But it’s super weird, like, you start missing people. Not even specific people, but just people, as an idea. It’s so crazy? I thought I was just going to escape for a bit, and instead it’s like – this whole journey, I guess, of realizing that maybe – talking to people is kind of good.”

Phil gapes at him, bewildered. The guy gives him that uncertain smile again, like he’s surfacing from some kind of – pond. There’s probably a better word.

“Sorry,” he says, again. 

His eyes are pretty, huge and chocolate-y brown. His face shifts as he talks, eyes going wide, nose scrunching, dimples appearing and disappearing like he’s having a million feelings at once. He sways like he can’t stop moving, this way and that. 

Phil feels – even more like a clam than normal. Not like a fun clam, either. Like one of the ones that maybe has a pearl and maybe doesn’t, but you’ll never know because he’s not going to open up, anyways, just going to sit there and filter a bit of seawater until he – dies? Do clams die?

“Do you think clams die?” he blurts. “I can’t remember.”

The guy pulls a face. 

Phil’s pretty sure he did ask his name, at some point. His hands kept shaking, even though he tried to give Martyn a wobbly smile, like everything was very cool and he was very cool, and letting this strange man into his room in this weird motel was _very_ normal and not completely terrifying. 

Dan, he thinks, buzzy. Daniel? Danny?

Something like that.

It doesn’t matter, anyways. Being in the desert and only talking to his brother and Cornelia has made him entirely weird, and this Dan character is not going to deal with him for very much longer. It doesn’t really matter if he thinks Phil’s normal. 

“I don’t think so – I mean, but they have to? Wait. Are clams immortal? Wait, come here,” he says. Phil wanders over.

 _Is this foreplay,_ his brain offers. _Clam based foreplay?_

Dan’s already got his phone out from his pocket. “I love this thing,” he says, quickly typing in something about whether clams die or not. “I think I missed wikipedia as much as I missed my mum.”

“Do you miss her a lot?”

“Uh. I guess so. Oh, look – five _hundred_ years? Phil. Phil,” he repeats. His fingers tap at Phil’s shoulder. Phil jolts like he’s been shocked. “Five hundred years is too much.”

“Clams should be banned,” Phil manages to say. 

Dan’s huge hand is covering his whole shoulder now, engulfing it in a way that makes Phil feel so small and fragile. He squeezes, idly, massaging the bare muscle like he isn’t even thinking. Phil tries not to moan, even though – maybe Dan’s a fan of that. He doesn’t know.

“Oh, mate, I hate that. I hate that clams are around too long. Ohhh, that’s not good.” 

Phil’s head is spinning, a bit. Dan just keeps touching his arm. He’s gentle, but – Phil doesn’t feel _small,_ often. Not physically, anyways. 

“Um. With the thing,” Phil says. “I – if you want to? We don’t have to, but – uh.”

Dan’s head pops up from his phone. His smile is – something else. All wide and dimpled and easy, like this is nothing.

“Yeah,” Dan agrees, softly. His phone is back in his pocket in a moment. He pauses, but then he’s swinging a leg over Phil’s lap, gently pushing him back to flop against the scratchy old bedspread. He kisses Phil, slow and syrupy. He seems – sure of himself, Phil thinks. Dan’s dick presses firm into the crease of Phil’s hip, but he’s not insistent about it.

Not like Phil, who’s basically a very upset dick, piloting a body. He vaguely wonders if it might do a better job than his brain does.

He ruts up against Dan with a little gasp, helpless to it. Dan smiles against his mouth.

“Missed this,” he whispers.

“I’m people,” Phil agrees. “Probably.”

Dan laughs, then, pulling away and peppering vague kisses over Phil’s chest. 

“Nips wise –”

“Ugh,” Phil blurts.

“Good ugh?”

“Uh. Please, yeah.”

Dan nods, very serious. He licks at one with – well. Phil supposes he was warned, actually. He arches his back, anyways. Dan’s already moving along, kissing down Phil’s stomach and laughing a bit when Phil squirms. 

“Sorry,” Phil mumbles.

“No, it’s – I dunno, it’s fun. I haven’t been able to do this in – a while.”

“Can you jerk off in a tent?”

Dan startles. Phil does, too. It’s a fucking weird question to ask.

“I mean, yeah,” Dan says, slowly. “No one’s listening. It’s just kind of – messy.”

“Ugh,” Phil says. Dan palms him, and he’s abruptly brought back to the present, thinking about the hand on his dick right now, instead of how Dan was wandering in the woods like _that_ for weeks on end.

Dan spits into his hand. It’s probably disgusting how much Phil likes that particular sound. He keens a bit when Dan starts moving his hand, properly jerking him off now.

“Mate,” Dan says, conversationally, still moving over Phil’s dick. “There’s this whole idea of not packing more than you need, when you’re hiking, right? So I don’t have any condoms, because – I mean, I didn’t think about this. I did think about bringing them, but then I thought, you know, this isn’t Brokeback Mountain, I’m not gonna go fuck anybody in the woods, so.”

Phil blinks up at him. He distantly wonders if Dan remembers that he’s got his hand on a dick. Phil is definitely very aware, but maybe that doesn’t hold as much power over Dan.

He tilts his face into the slant of sunlight coming through the blinds. It feels like – an intrusion, a little bit. Like the sun is too strong for this measly little motel room.

“I have some,” he croaks. “I can get them.”

“Bathroom?”

“In the little bag, yeah.” He breathes a sigh of relief when Dan pats his stomach and goes to get them, leaving Phil to sprawl out on the bed and consider the state of his own dick in peace.

He squishes his feet against the carpet. 

Random people have probably fucked in this bed before, he thinks, idly. He shoves that out of his mind.

Dan’s already busy ripping one open, by the time he comes back. He scrunches his face up all funny as if he’s putting on a show. Phil laughs, finally. It loosens something in him, to watch how simultaneously silly and focused Dan can be. Dan smiles up at him as he rolls it Phil. He seems – almost shy, Phil thinks. It’s gone in a moment. 

Dan sinks down, quick and easy. He glances up at Phil, smirking a bit like he’s pleased with himself, before he starts bobbing his head.

He’s – good. He hollows his cheeks out and hums and plays around with bottoming out, like he’s practiced and he knows Phil will respond. 

Phil lets himself sink into the feeling. He quirks his hips up a bit, mostly by accident, and Dan lets him, so he keeps doing it. Dan hums softly, once in a while, breathing out a bit through his nose.

Phil’s – embarrassingly quick, really. It’s the first time the whole trip where they could afford separate rooms, and he supposes he’s been more pent up than he thought.

He flinches up into Dan’s mouth one last time, biting at the soft skin on his own wrist to keep quiet. 

Quieter, anyways. He’s maybe a little bit too vocal.

“Good?” Dan asks, when Phil’s surfaced again. He’s pillowed his cheek on Phil’s thigh, blinking those kind doe eyes up at him. 

“Uh-huh,” Phil mumbles. 

Dan laughs, but he’s not mean about it. He ties off the condom and dumps it somewhere, when Phil makes no move to be useful. 

“C’mere?” Phil says. He’s so plaintive about it, like he’s adrift without Dan, even though he doesn’t have any business expecting him to be there.

Dan reappears anyways, still smiling. Phil half expects him to have some kind of announcement about what he’d like in return, but instead he clambers into the bed, flattens his sweat-sticky body along Phil’s and tucks his head in like he –

“You want a cuddle?” Phil blurts, bewildered. “Now?”

“Sorry,” Dan says. He goes to move away, suddenly shy, but Phil rolls towards him. He stills, obviously as confused as Phil feels. 

“We can,” Phil says.

Dan twists his hand in the blanket. 

“Not a lot of cuddling with bears,” he says, slow and uncertain.

“Your type is _bears?_ What am I doing here?”

“Not bears.”

“You _said_ bears.”

“The animal, bears,” Dan huffs. “They don’t cuddle.” He flops back down, apparently making a show of sprawling his long limbs out as much as possible. 

“They must cuddle a little bit,” Phil argues. “Just not with you.”

“Okay, Phil.”

“Can I touch your dick?”

Dan shrugs. “Sure.”

Phil isn’t completely sure if he should be offended or not. “I mean, I can blow you.”

Dan wiggles. His dick is squashed up against Phil’s hip, so it’s not like he’s miserable and bored of the whole situation, Phil’s pretty sure. He’s just – hard to read. That’s the part that stresses him out about all this; the not knowing.

“Can I kiss you?” Dan says, so soft. It’s like he’s given up on half of the syllables. Or Phil can’t hear half of them. He’s never really sure.

He tips into it, anyways, pressing a warning kiss to Dan’s forehead when he fails to look up at first. Dan’s eager, once he catches on. He tries to hold it back, Phil thinks, but he’s everywhere at once anyways, warm long fingers scrabbling over Phil’s hip until he gets his hand pinned under the small of his back, finally steadying. He sighs, softly, breathing like this is the only thing he’s ever wanted.

Phil reaches down, anyways, wrapping his fist around Dan. He stutters a bit, but he’s back to kissing Phil after half a moment, only jolting a bit in his grasp.

“Dry,” Dan mumbles, before going back for more. 

Phil finds himself laughing. Dan bites at his lip when Phil pushes at him.

“Can you control yourself so I can do something about that?”

“No,” Dan whines. He flops face first into the nasty comforter, anyways.

“Kissing monster,” Phil chides. He spits into his hand, makes a point of staring Dan in the eyes while he does it. Dan blushes, abruptly. Phil doesn’t know if he blushes easily, but it doesn’t seem like it. He reaches down, catching Dan in his fist again. “That better?”

Dan dives in to kiss him again, rather than talking. Phil goes with it. He’s pretty, like this, wantonly bucking up into Phil’s hand. Phil’s head has cleared enough that he can watch, when Dan pulls away to breathe. He studies the way Dan’s front has gone red, how his ass looks in the weak light. His shoulders are bruised purple from carrying his pack for so many miles. There’s a red raw spot on each of his hips, and his legs are long and firm, and when he curls his feet, Phil has to look away from how gnarled and odd they are. He looks like – his body has a purpose, and maybe it’s a little this.

Dan comes with a little gasp, still clumsily trying to kiss Phil. He just barely manages to angle it so it doesn’t immediately end up on the blanket. 

“Thanks,” he says, vaguely, once he’s pulled away a bit. He doesn’t quite look at Phil until he’s already gone and found a towel, but Phil – sort of gets that. He doesn’t much like looking people in the eyes either.

\--

“Why’d you do it?” Phil asks, later. 

They’ve ended up in the pool. He feels a bit odd about hanging out half-naked with, in this order: his brother, his brother’s girlfriend, and the stranger he’d jerked off ten minutes ago, but – there’s not actually much else to do here. It’s not like he can beg off and say he’s got somewhere to be. He’d tried to distract himself with a game on his phone, earlier in the morning, but even that had given him a _poor connection_ and then a _low battery_ right after. 

There’s nothing other than this pool, and the rickety looking motel, and a shack down the road that only sells bears carved out of tree stumps to people like them who are just passing through.

He squints out at the fucking abyss of desert, leaning his elbows on the burnt concrete edge, careful not to get too close.

“Just wanted to escape,” Dan says, easily. “For a little bit.”

 _Doesn’t that seem reckless,_ Phil wants to ask. He doesn’t. 

“What about you?” Dan asks, before Phil can come up with anything reasonable.

“My brother wanted to visit Area 51 and see some aliens.”

Dan laughs, loud and surprised and borderline too much. 

It really _was_ their whole reason for coming here, for flying all the way and then driving for miles and living on weird American gas station snacks and milkshakes from little roadside stands that felt stuck in the past, just to go look at a big expanse of absolutely nothing. 

“Aliens aren’t real,” Dan says, entirely too confident.

Phil splashes a handful of water at him. “How would you know? Are you their king?”

“No? If they were real they wouldn’t have kings. You think there’s aliens and they still believe in monarchy? That’s so old fashioned. Dream bigger, Phil.”

Phil huffs. “Are you their prime minister, then?”

“No. No? They’d be like – hey, did you know aspen trees just live as a colony? Like, they just find a bit of land that they like, and then they start reproducing there. There’s no government or anything.”

“Like colonizers?” Phil asks, idly. It would make sense that aliens are just looking for wherever they might be able to put roots down and multiply.

Dan makes a little horrified noise. His stubborn expression immediately melts into horror, eyes wide, mouth twitching like he’s trying to come up with a sentence. Phil hadn’t even particularly thought about what he was saying, but – he supposes he should have guessed that Dan would. “Are aspen trees – Phil, hello, Phil? Are aspen trees – problematic?”


End file.
